Competition – Thoughts from T.Nagar

Sea of heads! That’s what comes to your mind when you see T.Nagar especially during the festival season of Diwali.

When one watches the video shots of T.Nagar (a prominent shopping areain Chennai) on television, doubt if they will even muster the courage to make a trip down there. I always think the people who go there are the ones who never watch this footage.

With all the malls and online stores – T.Nagar shopping seems to be only on the increase against all pundit’s prediction.

How is it that these stores manage to attract customers in spite of all the rush, driving and parking challenges, noise, small fights, elbow nudging, etc? Why do people feel there is value in going over and shopping at T.Nagar every year in spite of the challenges? How do so many look alike competitors sitting next to each other happily (may be not so really) co-exist and remain in business? Is hyper-competition actually catalyzing sales in this area?

Can there be lessons to learn from these store owners and businessmen for all of us?